Oh. And, even if they FBI only finds something vaguely suspicious, from the books I have read on it, Federal indictments are absurdly easy to get. Even if they can’t make the charges stick, it looks real bad to have the papers trumpeting “chief of police and 4 deputies indicted”.
The FBI can of course make sure the booking is done in front of media, and they win at trial 95% of time so they can probably get at least one of the indicted people to take a plea…
In many cases, it’s more likely to be either the local Sheriff’s office or else the state equivalent of the FBI doing the investigating.
He is also the Commander in Chief.
Not true in this case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_ActExclusions and limitations[edit]
*There are a number of situations in which the Act does not apply. These include:
National Guard units and state defense forces while under the authority of the governor of a state;
Federal military personnel used in accordance to the Insurrection Act, as was the case during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.*
Direct order? Probably not because they can’t give a direct order (not legally anyway and the cop can ignore it).
It would more likely take the form of, “Do you know who I am? You must not like your job very much! What’s your name? Wait till Chief Jones hears about this!”
There was recently a bizarre and embarrassing battle in tiny Macungie, PA between the mayor and chief of police over the mayor’s power.
It was very long and convoluted and I could easily be misremembering a few details but the fight was that mayor Rick Hoffman wanted access to confidential police record like scheduling details and the chief tried to refuse.
Evidently:
My linked article is from January 2013 and there’s a more recent July 2013 article saying that the court refused to hear an appeal and that the mayor had quit and moved to Virginia anyway.
Not seeing where that is any different from what I said.
Not sarcastic. See below. The answer I’d give would be different if I knew you were from another country.
It depends on the state law and constitution and the specific structure of the municipal government in question.
In some cities, the mayor has ultimate executive authority. In some cities, the city council/commission has ultimate executive authority. In some cities, ultimate executive authority is given to a city manager, who is appointed by the mayor/council/commission.
In some cities, the chief of police is chosen through an administrative process and the mayor or city council/commission have very limited powers to remove or replace the chief (there must be a finding of cause, in other words).
In some cases, the power is given to a commissioner or law director or city manager who has authority independent of the mayor or council/commission. The elected officials might have more or less authority to remove that person if he or she fails to fire a police chief that displeases them.
It all depends.
Right. That’s part of the Federalism inherent to the US. The Feds can come in and tell state governors to stop violating the Constitution by arbitrarily arresting civilians without charges, coining “California Bux” money, or issuing letters of marque and reprisal. They can’t come in and tell a state that they can’t require cha-cha lessons in order to graduate from high school. Education is a state-level prerogative. In reality, if a state wanted to require cha-cha lessons for high school students and the Feds got pissed, what would actually happen would be that the Feds would threaten to stop providing federal funding to state schools (which is not guaranteed by the Constitution and can be withdrawn at the will of Congress). That usually convinces the state to get with the program. However, that’s effectively all they can do - if the state is so into cha-cha that they are willing to give up millions of dollars in Federal funding for it, then they have a right to it.
In some jurisdictions, (Larger cities? I think this is the case in Canada too) the police chief is appointed and reports to a board - which usually consists of the mayor, some councillors, some other members (public?). The idea being that you don’t have the simple 1-to-1 reporting, so things are more open, the chief of police is less easily bullied, and it’s harder to have undue influence on the police command structure.
Short answer - 50 states, a lot of different options.
It’s not quite as simple as that. Even Congress can’t act coercively when it exercises the power of the purse strings.
I pissed off a politician and was yanked off patrol and reassigned to work in the county jail for almost 2 years.
Of course, that politician was the sheriff and therefore my boss. Still a pol though.